I Could Love You by William Nicholson Read Free Book Online Page A

Drawings of monsters and spiky figures wielding weapons. He’ll be back from school in a little while. Alan hasn’t yet returned, but he promised he’d be home before Cas gets back.
    The doorbell rings.
    At first Matt does nothing, on the grounds that the caller won’t have come for him. Then he remembers that the caller has come for him. Alan’s sister needs a plumber. Alan arranged for her to drop by this afternoon.
    Matt climbs the stairs to the ground floor and opens the front door. A youngish woman is standing outside, caught in the moment of turning to leave. Straight brown hair cut just above the shoulder. A plain bare face. Greenish eyes.
    She turns back in some confusion.
    ‘Oh, you are here,’ she says. ‘I thought maybe I’d missed you.’
    ‘No,’ says Matt. ‘Come on in.’
    As she comes past him into the hall he glances at her again. She’s wearing a dark grey suit that gives her a business-like air, she moves with brisk economy, but the way she casts her eyes down, that he recognizes. She’s nervous.
    ‘I don’t like to interrupt your work.’
    ‘No, that’s okay. Alan said you’d be coming round.’
    They go into the living room, each aware of the incongruity, as if Matt is the host and she his guest.
    ‘I’m Meg,’ she says.
    ‘Right.’
    Now that they have reached a destination of sorts, neither sits down. Nor do they look at each other. Unlikely though it seems, Meg is clearly shy in his presence. She is the employer, he the employee. The servant, almost. But she seems not to believe she has the right to command his time.
    ‘I expect you’re too busy,’ she says.
    ‘That depends.’
    Matt too has his eyes on the floor.
    ‘It’s the shower,’ she says. ‘It was never much good. Now it doesn’t work at all.’
    ‘Where is this?’
    ‘Uckfield. I expect it’s out of your area.’
    ‘I don’t exactly have an area.’
    ‘It’s just so hard to find anyone to take on the small jobs. Which I do understand. It can’t really be worth your while. But Alan was telling me how good you are. So I just thought, well, I can ask.’
    Matt listens to her low hesitant voice with a growing sensation that is not familiar to him. He looks up and catches a glimpse of uncertainty in her eyes just as she’s looking at him. Both look down again at once, but not before Matt has registered the cause of his confusion.
    Meg is beautiful.
    Her beauty is not obvious. Not the current style at all, very understated, almost withdrawn. Hers is a severe face, solemn as a saint in a picture. It’s the tremor behind the severity, the modesty you could call it, that makes her beautiful.
    ‘I’ll be on this job till Christmas,’ he says. ‘Then I’ve got a boiler to put in. When would you be wanting the work done?’
    ‘Oh, any time, really. No hurry.’
    ‘Well, then.’
    He looks up at her again. She meets his gaze with that uncertain smile. She’s biting her lower lip.
    ‘I’d best come and take a look,’ he says.
    ‘Oh, would you? I’d be so grateful.’
    She takes out a pen and a business card and writes her home address on the back, and her phone number. He watches the way she frowns as she writes.
    ‘When do you think you could come?’
    ‘I could look in tomorrow, end of the morning.’ Tomorrow is Saturday. ‘Twelvish.’
    ‘Are you sure? That would be perfect.’
    She gives him the card, and she goes.
    That’s all that happens.
    Matt turns the card over. Meg Strachan, Assistant Marketing Manager, Hartfield Surgical Centre .
    He washes up his coffee mug, then climbs the stairs once more to the top of the house. There he resumes work building the steading for the bath. As he works, he pictures Meg’s face.
    You can tell a lot from a face. Her face is a real face. When she looked at me she saw me.
    Matt works away steadily, forming a frame of two-by-fours, cutting the joins to fit neatly even though the structure will be concealed behind plywood panels.
    A new shower shouldn’t